Dr Simon Atkinson

Position:

• Teaching Officer, Academic Development and Training for International Students (ADTIS)

Contact Information

Telephone: +44 (0)1223(3)35348
Email: spa29@cam.ac.uk

Profile

On the Pre-Sessional course Simon teaches postgraduate students who are just about to start studying at the University, helping them prepare for challenge of studying in a foreign culture. On the In-Sessional course, he supervises undergraduates, postgraduates and post-docs from all Cambridge departments and colleges, although he specialises in teaching scientists. He was also the main teacher on short academic English courses for visiting Chinese university students run by the China UK Development Council. Outside the Language Centre, he supervises undergraduates at Gonville and Caius College in academic skills.

Before taking up his Language Centre post in 2009, Simon taught English for Academic Purposes in other UK institutions, primarily SOAS, University of London. He also taught for a year in Wuxi, China, preparing students for a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of New England, Australia.

Simon graduated in 1993 from the University of Leicester with a BSc degree that was three quarters physics and one quarter physical geography. After that, he moved to the University of Salford, where he gained an MSc in environmental management, and a PhD on environmental management in the electricity industry. He then worked as a journalist for over 4 years on The ENDS Report, the leading UK journal of environmental management and business, before starting teaching Academic English.

Outside of work, Simon is a keen practitioner of yoga, which takes him around the UK and beyond, often on his fold up bicycle. He has been learning Sanskrit since 2001 and he has written an academic book about yoga:

Atkinson, S. (2022) Krishnamacharya on Kuṇḍalinī: the Origins and Coherence of his Position, Bristol: Equinox Publishing